Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi

I imported an water dragon last year and less than one week after he arrived home he developed an eye infection. I treated it but it became a mouth rot. He lost half of his mouth before i found out why his nose was so swollen. Only when the skin around his mouth started to fell i found out he had mouth rot.I treated him again this time with Betadine and the mouth rot is almost gone, the skin is growing again and covering his teeth but one of his cheeks is still swollen just below one of the eyes . I think it is an abcess. It feels hard but the skin is perfect. I dont see any hole to help the pus to go out.How can i treat an abcess just below a perfect eye without damaging the eye?

Flavia

IMHO you should take it to a vet and have it cleaned out properly. The pus needs to be removed, the wound flushed and the dragon put on antibiotics after doing a culture and sensitivity test to see what bacteria is involved. Af you don't its quite likely that it will go systemic and your dragon will die.

Reptile pus is thick like cottage cheese and can't be penetrated by the antibiotics/white blood cells so the infection is not likely to clear up if the pus isn't removed.
Good luck!

If it's an import, you probably ought to take it into a vet anyways, because you should have it checked for parasites and probably deworm it. It sounds like your water dragon was all kinds of messed up when it came in, which is probably due to shipping stress and poor husbandry. Get it to the vet, so the existing problems can be treated, and then make sure you have it in a sufficiently large enclosure. Water dragons are prone to snout running, which could be making the current health problems worse. A larger enclosure with sufficient hide space and pools to soak in will significantly decrease your lizard's stress, which will take some toll off its immune system, as well. Your animal sounds like it's got a good fighting chance of surviving and coming out happy and healthy, but it's going to take some pricey vet bills and a lot of TLC.